Paul Simon's music is a singular mix of romance, melancholy and quirky observation, and even after 50 years his fame sits uneasily on his quiet self, writes Eileen Battersby
Edginess - there has always been that nervy, intense, somewhat wistful quality. It has defined the man, the musician and the writer of many of the finest songs in the modern catalogue. Paul Simon, who plays in Dublin next week, has always been driven by the tunes that inhabit his consciousness.
Famously uneasy in person, his stage presence is a study of discomfort, his asides are often funny and usually pertinent but, delivered in his halting, self-conscious speaking voice, invariably sound awkward.
After all this time, and all the success that has made him rich - he could have stopped working a very long time ago - Simon still tends to look like the boy who was forced against his wishes into the school play. At his happiest, at least in public, when playing the guitar, he is a singular mix of romance, energy, melancholy and defiance. There are many statements contained in his lyrics but he avoids polemic. He also has the gift of the quirky observation.
"There is a frog in South America/ Whose venom is a cure/ For all the suffering that mankind/ Must endure . . . A frog in South America/ Has the cure for pain" (from Senorita With A Necklace of Pain). Simon's unease, curiosity, literary sensibility and uncanny sense of rhythm ensure his songs live and the lyrics are worthy of the music.
In the course of a career which began when he was a teenager, and which now spans 50 years, he has been engaged in an artistic quest that has led him to many types of music, from reggae to English folk songs; to the sounds of South America, Africa and the Caribbean, to New Orleans jazz and resonant gospel. Like an old-style explorer, he has listened and absorbed, he seems to hear the rhythm of individual native music traditions. This essential, almost scholarly thoughtfulness informing his approach to the soaring possibilities of music, has fed his inspiration. His inherent, highly intelligent but instinctive musicality has done the rest.
He reached 65 last month, on Friday 13th. Slip Slidin' Away played on the car radio and the announcer remarked on the fact, with some surprise, wished him a happy birthday and praised the work; the life's work as much as the track.
And Surprise just happens to be the title of his strong new album, which is dominated by Wartime Prayers with its mood of change, a mood that runs through the entire album which is reflective and aware of change. Like many US writers, Simon is looking at the 9/11 aftermath. Surprise comes six years after the 2000 Grammy-nominated You're The One album. For all the introspection that has always filtered through his songs, Simon, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, but moved to Queens when he was two years old, has also looked to his country. For all the cultural influences in his ever-distinctive, ever-inventive sound, he is an American writer whose vision has been shaped by poetry and politics and New York City, not the American west.
"Nothing is different, but everything's changed" - the refrain of Once Upon a Time There was an Ocean, another track from the new album, also describes America, and the world itself. As prophets go, Simon is the quieter type. There is anger in his songs, but while barbed it is muted, cohesive. He has never concealed his political consciousness, but tends to be polite, if direct, and is never incoherent - his rage makes sense, as do his truths: "Takes a lot of nerve/ Ask somebody to love you/ You got a lot of nerve/ Ask somebody to love you" (from Look At That).
AS THE YEARS have passed, he has become mellow but never complacent. Even now, as one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time, and the one, the only one, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Bob Dylan, the self-conscious Paul Simon who knows he has never acquired a Dylan-like aura, still tends to shrug and ponder and wonder if "the stuff" as he often refers to his music, is any good. It's always good, more than good, but this searching and wondering is one of the reasons why session musicians love working with him - and he always works with the best.
The musical line-up on any Simon album, or concert, is like a musical roll of honour including Steve Gadd, Richard Tee, Vincent Nguini and John Selolwane. Simon himself is a fine guitarist. From the beginning, Simon paid huge attention to production values. This care ensured that the original Simon & Garfunkel recordings still sound so good, and Simon the perfectionist has remained meticulous. It is interesting that this most deliberate of writers and singers possesses such improvisational flair. His own sweetly youthful voice, warm, slightly layered and wonderfully elastic, has proved a solid asset.
It has retained that distinctive yearning quality and works particularly well in narrative-driven works such as Darling Lorraine, a portrait of love won and lost and rediscovered in tragedy. The Simon voice is as capable of streetwise subversion, as in 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, as it is of plaintive recall. But Simon has always felt there were better voices, so he still takes singing lessons. This is characteristic of a man who has never taken anything, much less his own powers, for granted.
REINVENTION IS PART of his genius. Who else has experimented so widely, incorporating so many mood and tone shifts, so many rhythms, and yet retained his inimitable style? Come to think of it, who else but Paul Simon would have written a song about an architect? A song such as So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright reveals a great deal about Simon, as does A Dangling Conversation.
It could not have been easy to re-emerge from the landmark legacy of Simon & Garfunkel as a solo artist, but Simon did with that defiance which has marked his personality, and the reggae Mother and Child Reunion introduced another dimension to the Simon repertoire. He may not want to have history revisited, but the fact remains that if Paul Simon considers the book closed on Simon & Garfunkel, neither his admirers nor the people who decide what is great possibly can.
The duo, who won five Grammy awards, appeared during the mid-1960s folk rock era that produced an elite of North American singer- songwriter talents such as Dylan, James Taylor, Simon himself, and the Canadian contingent of Leonard Cohen who was slightly older, followed by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot. Simon should not shrug off Simon & Garfunkel - after all, he wrote all those great songs and he composed the tunes. They sounded different, East Coast intellectual, subtle and melodic, with echoes of the Everly Brothers.
Simon and Garfunkel also looked different; two smart college boys who were not particularly oppressed by their Jewishness, even if their names conjure up an image of a law firm. In a hippy age of drugs and sexual abandon, alcohol and groupies, they also looked respectable and opted for collars and ties - not love beads. As time has passed, Simon has moved on from suits to turtlenecks and now favours T-shirts.
By 1970, the rifts had appeared. The urbane Garfunkel wanted to be an actor and Simon may have felt his writing talent had been overshadowed by his taller, better-looking partner whose delicate tenor voice had a haunting surreal beauty of its own. They split up, but the songs - such as Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Sound of Silence, Homeward Bound, America, The Boxer, Mrs Robinson, Kathy's Song, Old Friends, Keep the Customer Satisfied - live on.
No one could possibly accuse Simon of having to rely on the backlist - and what a backlist - as there are plenty of new songs. But such has been his own output that his backlist now includes more Paul Simon solo recordings.
In October 1975, Simon released Still Crazy After All These Years, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year, topped the charts and included the number one single, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. In 1980 he wrote and starred in the forgettable movie, One Trick Pony, which produced one great track, Late in the Evening. It reached the top 10.
Three years later, Simon experienced his first real sense of failure with the Hearts and Bones album which, aside from the title track, was lacklustre. But it was useful. Simon wasn't happy with it either and he began looking around. His search brought him to new territory, South African music and its steady beat, which inspired Graceland, which won the 1987 Album of the Year Grammy and became his biggest selling solo work. In 1990 came The Rhythm of the Saints, which drew on the music of Brazil. A year later, Paul Simon played a free concert in Central Park and the live recording spanning two CDs reiterates the diversity as well as the cohesion of his music which is his response to his life and times. Hearts and Bones was not his only flop: in 1997 a stage musical, The Capeman, based on a double killing, went badly wrong for Simon and his collaborator, the Nobel literature laureate, Derek Walcott.
IN 1992 SIMON married Texan singer Edie Brickell. It is his third marriage and they have three children. Simon has a son from his first marriage.
Love and relationships, parents and children, hopes and dreams are central to his work. The final track on Surprise, entitled Father and Daughter, includes the promise: "I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever."
Simon the romantic realist has sustained his belief in music, and his songs, catchy and elegiac, appear destined to shine with the quiet insistence that makes him impossible to ignore.
TheSimonFile
Who is he? Famously gifted and introspective US singer-songwriter, probably the finest, just lacks the weirdness of the iconic Dylan
Why is he in the news? Performing in Dublin next week, he may be quiet but he gives great concerts
Most appealing characteristic Very human, suffers doubt about everything from his appearance to his work
Least appealing characteristic The changing nature of his traumatised hair - he didn't really have a hair transplant, did he?
Most likely to say "Maybe we should play those last three notes again"
Least likely to say "Hey, Artie, how about another tour?"